When I was growing up, ‘supper’ was the name given to the little treat you got just before brushing your teeth and going to bed.  Orange squash and a digestive, or similar.  But apparently, ‘supper’ is also a posh word for ‘dinner’.  Which is a posh word for ‘tea’.

Last night, we held our very first ‘WK Supper’.  We’ve been trying to organise it for about 17 years, and it finally happened, in our offices, last night.  We held it in our Oval Room, which makes it nearly sound as important as The Oval Office (in The White House).  Which it possibly isn’t.

The idea was to bring together a group of interesting people we know, feed and water them, whilst stimulating and provoking some debate around a chosen subject.  There are far more interesting people outside of advertising than in it, so this was our attempt to bring a bit of that into the agency.  Last night’s subject was Corporate Social Responsibility.  Which is important enough to capitalise.

Our agent provocateur for the evening was Wayne Hemingway.  He and his wife won MBEs in the last round of honours, but he’s much prouder of the fact that they recently designed the top tile in Topps Tiles.  It’s well worth clicking on the link above to find out more about what they think and, more importantly, get out there and do.

Wayne shared some of his philosophies and projects with the group.  He was hugely inspirational, energetic and thought-provoking.  And one thing’s for sure… that lad can talk!

Wayne’s presentation was intercut with, and followed by, a range of healthy and spikey debate amongst the whole group, who shall remain named:

Nicki Kinnaird (the ‘NK’ in SpaceNK), Jeff Dodds (Honda and ex-wrestler), Dave and Claire Hieatt (Howies… Cardigan Bay’s third largest clothing retailer), the lovely Jessie Brinton (Sunday Times), the also lovely Eugenie Harvey (We Are What We Do… new book out now, ish), Paul Colman (Yakult hard man, less lovely), Dick Powell (D&AD head honcho and all-round design guru), Simon Jordan (Jump Studios, who helped us design our space) and then Neil, Tony, Kim, Sam and Stuart (W+K hangers on).

The food and drink was all organised by Jamie Oliver’s (ooh get me, name dropping) ‘Fifteen To You‘.  As you may know from the TV show, the purpose of Fifteen is to inspire disadvantaged young people to believe that they can create for themselves a career in the restaurant business.  They catered for us superbly last night.

The night was a great success, we think.  Well, we hope.  Well, no fights broke out, at least.  Oh wait a minute, one nearly did after ‘The Jeremy Clarkson Incident’.  Anyway, a big thank you to all those who came, and we hope it beat a night at home in front of Big Brother.  What happened in it last night, by the way?